Monday, October 27, 2008

Club News, Latest!

Forget Bonn, forget Kramnik, forget Anand, forget all that exciting important stuff - you can read about it anywhere. But it's only here that you'll find out how Streatham & Brixton Chess Club have been getting on.

First off, let's start with the Croydon League. Our first team in Division 1 last Tuesday faced a tough challenge in the form of West Wickham's C-team. They not only outgraded us on every board, but on three of the four boards sported junior players too - whose grades typically prove underestimates, of course. And . . . we succumbed 3-1, which made me wonder just how strong the West Wickham's B and A teams would prove to be. Except it turns out - adding another item to the long list of things I don't understand about chess - those teams are in Division 2!

Anyway, on the subject of Division 2 of the Croydon League, our second team were also outgraded on three of the four boards two weeks ago today, in their away match against Coulsdon seconds. I was the only player who outgraded my opponent, and so a win was clearly required by myself on top board. I managed to deliver it via a sacrificial attack after my opponent played passively:

That helped the match to finish a respectable 2-2 draw.

Meanwhile, our first team match in the twelve-board London League Division One against Cavendish 1, from Thursday 23rd October, stands 5-4 to us - with three adjournments we can hope to score more than one point from. Still, there'll be no chickens counted just yet, as Streatham Thirds loss to GLCC should remind us from Division Four. Their match stood 3-3 after the night itself, but didn't improve after the two adjourned games resumed: we ended up losing that one 3-5. Finally, our last bit of news is good news for us. Our second team in London League Division 3 have beaten Metropolitan Thirds 6-3 with one game adjourned. A great result, not least because Metropolitan have proven a bit of a bogey team for ourselves in recent times.

And, that's it for now. Thanks for reading, and back to news and analysis from the World Championship you can go!